Showing 1 - 20 of 158 results
Abortion Reform in Washington State
On November 3, 1970, Washington voters approved Referendum 20, which legalized abortion in the early months of pregnancy. Fifteen other states had liberalized their abortion laws by that time, but Washington was the first -- and so far the only -- state to do so through a vote of the people. It was a triumphant moment in a campaign that had its genesis in 1967, in the office of Seattle psychologist Samuel Goldenberg, who had been asked to help two patients, one middle-aged and the other a young college student, both desperate for a way to end an unwanted pregnancy.
File 5313: Full Text >
Adams, Nora B. (1928-2004)
Nora B. Adams was an African American Seattle Public School principal who left more than $1 million in her estate to three of her major interests. She left $600,000 to the Seattle Public Schools Scholarship Fund and divided the rest between cancer and heart research. A shrewd investor, Adams divested herself of stock brokers and managed her own portfolio. She devoted 37 years to education, as a teacher and as an administrator and was one of the first black female principals in the city. According to her nephew, Gordon McHenry Jr. (Boeing executive and former member of the Seattle Public Library Board), she was the quintessential educator, not given to idle chatter but insisting on thoughtful and meaningful conversation.
File 8506: Full Text >
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (1909) -- A Cybertour of Selected Buildings
This is a "Now and Then" Cybertour of selected exhibit buildings at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, held in 1909 on the University of Washington campus in Seattle. The buildings included in the Cybertour include most of those funded by the federal government and by the four Washington counties (Chehalis, King, Spokane, and Yakima) that erected buildings at the fair. This tour also includes the Washington Building (an important gathering place for large receptions) and the New York Building (where most of the fair's important banquets were held). This tour was written by Alan Stein and Paula Becker with assistance from Jennifer Ott, and curated by Paula Becker. Map by Marie McCaffrey. Preparation of this feature was made possible by the Washington Humanities Commission.
File 8678: Full Text >
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (1909): Woman Suffrage
During the first week of July 1909, suffrage proponents from across the country gathered in Seattle to participate in the 41st Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and to celebrate Woman Suffrage Day at Washington's first world's fair, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific (A-Y-P) Exposition, currently underway on the University of Washington campus. The Washington Equal Suffrage Association convention, held the day before the National convention, drew suffragists from around the state. The suffragists, their conventions, and their appearances in area clubs and churches received copious coverage in local newspapers and captured the attention of thousands of Washingtonians attending the A-Y-P Exposition. Suffragists used the A-Y-P as a massive public relations opportunity and this exposure was an important component in how Washington women achieved the vote on November 8, 1910.
File 8587: Full Text >
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, 1909 -- A Slide Show of Seattle's First World's Fair
This is a Slide Show on the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, Washington's first World's Fair, which opened on June 1, 1909, and closed on October 16, 1909. More than three million people visited the fair, which took place in Seattle on the University of Washington campus. Written and Curated by Paul Dorpat, with Chris Goodman. Presented by Safeco.
File 7082: Full Text >
Alexander, Stella (1881-1960)
Stella Alexander was a woman ahead of her time. She broke into the previously exclusive boy's club of Issaquah politics when she was elected to the town council in 1927, and in 1932 was elected to a two-year term as mayor of the town (located in east King County). A large woman who seemed to enjoy confrontation, Alexander soon alienated her town council and eventually, the citizens she was elected to lead. The fire department resigned en masse; the police judge resigned; part of the town counsel refused to work with her; bedlam reigned in Issaquah politics in 1933. Three recall petitions were filed against the mayor; she nimbly dodged the first two, but the third was the coup de grace, and on January 2, 1934, she was recalled. In a grand finale, she refused to turn over the keys to the town hall.
File 8474: Full Text >
Anderson, Ernestine (b. 1928): Jazz Singer
Ernestine Anderson launched her amazing career as a jazz singer while still a teenaged Seattle high school student back in the 1940s. By the 1950s she was an experienced performer who'd toured widely and sung with big-name bands led by Johnny Otis, Lionel Hampton, and Eddie Heywood. Anderson's debut album brought rave reviews from leading music critics which led to her being included in the all-star lineup at the very first Monterey Jazz Festival in 1958, and she was soon heralded as an important new singing star by both Time and down beat magazines. In the decades since, she has cut more than 30 albums of sophisticated and sensual jazz and blues music, received four GRAMMY award nominations, and been honored with a command performance at the White House.
File 8520: Full Text >
Artists of Washington State During World War II
In 1935, a group of artists in New York City formed the American Artists Congress as a response to the growth of Fascism throughout the world. Three Washington state artists signed the original Call of the organization: Kenneth Callahan (1905-1986), Thomas Handforth (1897-1948), and Barney Nestor (1903-1974). Several other regional artists would eventually align themselves with the organization and participated in their exhibitions. Like their contemporaries, some Washington state artists addressed themes of war in their work, either in support of the effort or through anti-war and pacifist imagery.
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Asberry, Nettie Craig (1865-1968)
Nettie Craig Asberry was an extraordinary, early African American resident of Tacoma who was known for her work in fighting racism and in helping to open doors for women. A founding member of the Tacoma NAACP, a music teacher, a club woman, and in later years a volunteer social worker in the community, she was a Tacoma icon.
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Ayer, Elizabeth (1897-1987)
Elizabeth Ayer, the first female graduate of the University of Washington's architecture program, helped fashion the residential architecture of many Seattle neighborhoods in the mid-twentieth century. Notwithstanding the growing popularity of modernism, Ayer integrated modern needs with traditional forms and throughout her career embraced historical styles.
File 1721: Full Text >
Ballard Branch, The Seattle Public Library
Ballard's public library has evolved from a reading room established more than a century ago to an important resource expressing the heritage and diversity of the community today. Philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) helped build Ballard's first real library when Ballard was its own town and not yet a Seattle neighborhood. This library served readers for 59 years before being replaced in 1963 by a new building. In 2005 that structure, in turn, was replaced by a state-of-the-art facility financed by the 1998 "Libraries for All" bond issue. The new Ballard Branch, located at 5614 22nd Avenue NW, opened in May 2005.
File 3878: Full Text >
Barr, Roberta Byrd (1919-1993)
Roberta Byrd Barr was an African American educator, civil rights leader, actor, librarian, and television personality. She was born in Tacoma and lived for much of her life in Seattle.
File 306: Full Text >
Borst, Kate (1855-1938)
Kate Kanim Borst was a Native American woman who was the third wife of Snoqualmie Valley settler, Jeremiah Borst. During her lifetime, she witnessed the transformation of the valley from prairies and Indian encampments to the beginnings of suburbia.
File 294: Full Text >
Bowen, Betty (1918-1977)
Betty Bowen was assistant director of the Seattle Art Museum, a civic activist on behalf of the arts and historic preservation, and an indefatigable promoter of Seattle artists. Two days before her death at age 58, Mayor Wes Uhlman (b. 1935) named her First Citizen of Seattle and proclaimed Valentine's Day in her honor.
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Bullitt, Dorothy Stimson (1892-1989)
Dorothy Stimson Bullitt purchased a small Seattle radio station with almost no listeners in 1947. She expanded it into one of the finest broadcasting empires in the nation. She was a Seattle civic leader who entered the business world at a time when women were not welcome. The Seattle-King County Association of Realtors named Dorothy Bullitt First Citizen of 1959.
File 677: Full Text >
Business and Industry in Seattle in 1900
A look at Seattle area businesses in 1900 indicates that the economy was simpler, life less complicated,
labor harder, travel slower, and that opportunities to enhance
one's quality of life were rarer. The modest turn-of-the-century Seattle
skyline was that of a town, but within a decade steel-framed skyscrapers
poked high crowns into the heavens above a true city. Historian James R. Warren surveys local industries and businesses at the beginning of the twentieth century in this special essay, adapted with permission from the Puget Sound Business Journal.
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Butler, Maude Eliza Kimball (1880-1963)
Maude Eliza Kimball Butler, born 1880, was a pioneer teacher-educator who devoted her life to public service and her family, a fidelity she inherited from her mother and bequeathed to her children and students. She was encouraged to be independent, self-reliant, and curious, and she was. She became a teacher at age 16, Wahkiakum County superintendent of schools at age 23, and widowed at age 36 with three children -- yet following the last, she resolutely survived to become a successful educator and parent. In addition to crusading for education, she pursued a full civic life and nurtured her own children to take on service careers. Her daughter, Julia Butler Hansen (1907-1988) was a groundbreaking state legislator and member of the U.S. Congress, and her son, James H. Butler (1908-1985), was chairman of the University of Southern California Drama Department from 1953 to 1974. Maude was an avid artist and possessed a full range of domestic skills. Said Julia Butler Hansen: "She was a brilliant, able, and talented woman, an excellent citizen and a wonderful mother ... . Her upbringing was strictly Victorian. Hers was a high code of duty, responsibility and morals but she was the most tolerant, adventurous and happy human being I have ever known" (J. B. Hansen to B. Leroy). Maude Butler died on December 9, 1963.
File 8711: Full Text >
Buxbaum, Edith (1902-1982)
The Viennese-born psychoanalyst Edith Buxbaum, author of Your Child Makes Sense (1949) and Troubled Children in a Troubled World (1970), arrived in Seattle on January 1, 1947. She was a leading psychoanalyst here for more than 30 years and was a principal founder of the Seattle Psychoanalytic Institute (later renamed Seattle Institute of Psychoanalysis [SIP]). She served as its Child Analysis Division Head and as Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Washington. Her devotion to children, her desire to improve the quality of their lives and, thus, better the world, by emphasizing the child's individuality and creativity -- with more listening, less discipline, a nuclear family with the mother preferably at home -- informed her philosophy and practice.
File 3674: Full Text >
Cabrini, Mother Francesca Xavier (1850-1917)
Mother Francesca Xavier Cabrini, Saint Cabrini (1850-1917) was the first American citizen to be declared a saint by the Catholic Church. In her journeys around the country, she came to Seattle three times: in 1903 to establish an orphanage, in 1909 when she gained American citizenship (and attended the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition), and in 1916 to establish a hospital.
File 2325: Full Text >
Campbell, Bertha Pitts (1889-1990)
Bertha Pitts Campbell, an early Seattle civil rights worker, was a founder of the Christian Friends for Racial Equality and an early board member of the Seattle Urban League. She was also one of 22 young women at Howard University in 1913 who founded the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, one of the largest African American sororities.
File 28: Full Text >
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Showing 1 - 20 of 225 results
Missionary women organize the Columbia Maternal Association, the first women's club in the Northwest, on September 3, 1838.
On September 3, 1838, the wives of six pioneer missionaries meet at the Whitman mission at Waiilatpu (near present-day Walla Walla) and organize the Columbia Maternal Association, the first women's club in the Northwest. It is the first and only time the charter members -- assigned to widely separated missions -- are able to gather together in person. Instead, the women (and seven others who join later) hold something like virtual meetings. They set aside an appointed hour, twice a month, for club activities, sometimes in the company of one or two other women but often alone. The association continues to function in this manner until 1847, when an Indian attack on the Whitman mission leads to the closure of all Protestant missions in the Northwest.
File 9236: Full Text >
Esther Clark Short and her family settle near Fort Vancouver on December 25, 1845.
On December 25, 1845, Esther Clark Short (1806-1862) arrives at the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Vancouver in what will become the city of Vancouver, Clark County. She, her husband Amos Meade Short (1808-1853), and their children explore the area near the fort and the Willamette Valley across the Columbia River before becoming the first American settlers to locate permanently in the future Clark County. They claim a section of land near Fort Vancouver, where they will establish their farm. Their move will lead to tension with the British Hudson's Bay Company, which seeks to confine American settlement to south of the Columbia River. The Shorts will not be deterred and will successfully defend their claim, which stretches from the banks of the Columbia River up to what is today W Fourth Plain Boulevard and Main Street. After Amos's death, Esther will play a pivotal role in building the new city of Vancouver.
File 8528: Full Text >
Marriage unites David Denny and Louisa Boren on January 23, 1853.
On January 23, 1853, King County's first Justice of the Peace, Dr. David S. Maynard (1808-1873) issues the new county's first (in a manner of speaking) marriage license and presides at the wedding of Seattle pioneers David T. Denny (1832-1903) and Louisa Boren (1827-1916).
File 2027: Full Text >
Arthur Denny proposes white-woman suffrage amendment in the Territorial Legislature's first session on February 28, 1854.
In 1854, Arthur Denny (1822-1899), one of the founders of Seattle, proposes an amendment at the first session of the territorial legislature "to allow all white females over the age of 18 years to vote." It is defeated by a single vote. Lawmakers make a small concession, granting every taxpaying inhabitant over 21 years of age the right to vote in school elections.
File 5211: Full Text >
U. S. citizen militia kills Nisqually women and children during Indian wars in April 1856.
In April 1856, during the Indian wars, Captain Hamilton J. C. Maxon and his citizen militia come upon a Nisqually encampment near where the Ohop Creek and the Mashel River join with the Nisqually River. (This is near the Thurston County-Pierce County border at the southernmost end of Puget Sound.) Several families, mostly women and children are encamped here. Captain Maxon and his volunteers kill everyone in this camp and then find a larger encampment near the confluence of the two rivers, again with mostly women and children present. The U.S. troops kill 17 of these Nisqually noncombatants and wound many more.
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Sisters of Providence arrive at Fort Vancouver on December 8, 1856.
On December 8, 1856, five Sisters of Providence, Roman Catholic nuns, arrive at Fort Vancouver, Washington. Sister Joseph (formerly Esther Pariseau) (1823-1902) is their leader. She will later be known as Mother Joseph, the Northwest's first architect.
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1857 Census: King County Population By Name
In 1857, a census of King County residents is taken. The population consists of 152 persons of European American descent including 86 adult males, 23 females age 18 and over, and 43 children of whom 14 were born in King County. This essay lists the 170 persons by name, sex, occupation, and place of birth.
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Sarah Yesler arrives in Seattle in July 1858.
In mid-July 1858, Sarah Burgert Yesler (1822-1887) arrives in Seattle to join her husband Henry Yesler (1810-1892), Seattle pioneer and proprietor of the town's first sawmill. Upon her arrival, she becomes cook for the sawmill employees, and actively involves herself in the Yesler business enterprises. She is in the forefront of the suffrage movement, active in the Seattle Library Association, a founder of Seattle's first social service organization, and in general, moves at the center of life in Seattle. The Yeslers were spiritualists who refused to join any church and resisted the anti-Chinese agitation in the 1880s. Sarah Yesler formed a passionate attachment to at least one other woman, while remaining a loyal wife to Henry. When she died in 1887, the entire city mourned the passing of one of their leading citizens.
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John Pinnell builds Seattle's first brothel in 1861.
In 1861, John Pinnell (or Pennell, in some sources), the proprietor of several lucrative brothels in San Francisco, arrives in Seattle, Washington Territory, and establishes the town's first brothel. He builds it just south of present-day (2000) Yesler Way. Seattle is a rough logging town with few women among the white population, and Pinnell's first prostitutes are Indian women. This marks the beginning of Seattle as an "open town" -- open, that is, to saloons, brothels, and gambling -- which will define local controversies and politics for many years to come.
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Mercer Girls reach Seattle on May 16, 1864.
On May 16, 1864, the first Mercer Girls from the East Coast reach Seattle. Seattle resident Asa Mercer (1839-1917) has recruited the group to provide teachers for the young community and in order to alleviate the problem of lack of women in the Puget Sound area.
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Mary Low Sinclair arrives in Cadyville (future Snohomish City) on May 1, 1865.
On the last day of April 1865, Mary Low Sinclair and her one-month-old son Alvin, board the small, unfinished steamer Mary Woodruff in Port Madison, Kitsap County, for a journey across Puget Sound and up the Snohomish River to a place called Cadyville, where her husband Woodbury Sinclair (1825-1872) has purchased the Edson T. Cady claim that previous December. Mary remembers the day of her arrival in an article published 46 years later in the November 24, 1911, issue of the Snohomish County Tribune. She does not mention the fact that she was the first Caucasian woman to take up permanent residence in the place that was to become Snohomish City. She also fails to note that even by 1911, she is considered to be the founder of education in Snohomish by opening her home as the first classroom. Plus, she skips over the intriguing fact that by learning the native languages of the area, she served as translator for visiting officials and journalists. The last recorded event was two years before her death, at 79 years of age, when she helps a reporter from Seattle's Post-Intelligencer interview Snohomish's famous Pilchuck Julia.
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Seattleites organize Seattle Library Association on August 7, 1868.
On August 7, 1868, Seattle's first library association, the future Seattle Public Library, is organized. Sarah Yesler (1822-1887) is appointed first librarian.
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Seattle Public Library opens in April 1869.
In April 1869, Seattle's Library Association opens a loan library, the future Seattle Public Library. Sarah Yesler (1822-1887) serves as the first librarian.
File 1938: Full Text >
Susan B. Anthony helps found Washington Woman Suffrage Association on October 1, 1871.
In October 1871, Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), national women's rights leader and vice president of the National Woman Suffrage Association, becomes the first woman to address the Washington Territorial Legislature. She and Oregon suffragist Abigail Scott Duniway (1834-1915) tour Washington Territory to promote the cause of woman suffrage (the right of women to vote). They help organize the Washington Equal Suffrage Association.
File 5557: Full Text >
Roller skating in Seattle first occurs on October 21, 1871.
On October 21, 1871, Mr. Kennedy opens a roller skating rink at the Pavilion, located at the southeast corner of Front Street (now 1st Avenue) and Cherry Street, using improved Plimpton roller skates. About 100 people attend, including about 70 men and 20 or 30 women. A certain gentleman "goes down in an unseemly pile."
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Seattle women hold Apron Festival on May 9, 1872.
On May 9, 1872, the "Ladies of the Congregational Church" put on an Apron Festival at the Pavilion (located in Seattle at the southeast corner of Front Street [renamed 1st Avenue] and Cherry). The women associated with the church decorate the hall and display more than 150 aprons of “every conceivable design and style.” About 100 people attend the Apron Festival and by evening's end every apron is sold. The women raise $125, which goes to the Congregational Church building fund.
File 1626: Full Text >
Japanese troupe performs to record crowds in Seattle on May 11, 1872.
On May 11, 1872, in Seattle, the Marshall & Co.’s Great Tycoon Troupe of Japanese performs to record crowds at the Pavilion. The troupe of eight men and two women includes “balancers, jugglers, top spinners, equilibrists, acrobats ..." Newspapers raved the performances as "incredible and wholly beyond description," and as "bordering on the marvelous."
File 1614: Full Text >
Masquerade Ball held in Seattle's Pavilion attended by 300 on February 23, 1874.
On February 23, 1874 at 8 p.m., the citizens of Seattle put on a Masquerade Ball at the Pavilion, with an attendance of about 300 including about 50 couples in costume and some 200 spectators. “The affair … proved to be the most successful one of the kind in this city.”
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Clara McCarty becomes first person to graduate from the Territorial University (of Washington) in June 1876.
In June 1876, Clara McCarty (1858-1929) is the first person to graduate from the Territorial University (of Washington) in Seattle. McCarty becomes a teacher and the first superintendent of schools in Pierce County.
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Clara McCarty is elected superintendent of Pierce County schools on November 2, 1880.
On November 2, 1880, Clara McCarty (1858-1929) is elected superintendent of Pierce County schools. McCarty, age 20, is the first woman in Pierce County to win elective office. She was also (in 1876) the first college graduate of the University of Washington. McCarty wins this election three years before women in Washington Territory first obtain the right to vote. (Women win and lose the right to vote several times before 1910, when Washington state becomes the fifth state in the nation to enfranchise women.)
File 5061: Full Text >
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Showing 1 - 20 of 33 results
A Letter Written from a 1900 Railroad Trip from Spokane to Athena, Oregon
This people's history, contributed by Richard Hall, consists of an eight-page letter written by his great grandmother, Annie Hall (1869-1921) in late November 1900. She boarded a Spokane-bound Northern Pacific train in Edwall, Lincoln County, and recorded her trip in a letter addressed to "My Dear Joe and Children." Joe is Joseph Banyon Hall (1857-1947), her husband. In Spokane, Annie changed to a Union Pacific train that took her to Athena, Oregon. The writing commenced at Tekoa and the letter was mailed, on December 2, 1900, several days after her arrival in Athena. Following the letter is a brief history of the Hall family by Richard Hall.
File 5445: Full Text >
Almonjuela, Dorothy (b. 1918): Growing Up Squamish
Dorothy Almonjuela (b. 1918) was born on an Indian reserve in North Vancouver, Canada. A Squamish Indian, she moved to Bainbridge Island in 1942. This account includes memories of her life on the reservation, berry-picking on Bainbridge Island, and her 1942 wedding to the Filipino farmer Tomas Almonjuela. This excerpt is taken from an interview conducted by Teresa Cronin on April 9, 1975 for the Washington State Oral History Project.
File 2510: Full Text >
Bryant, Alice Franklin (1899-1977)
Alice Bryant was a life-long peace activist and advocate for justice, based in Seattle. She was a world traveler, a prolific writer of letters to the editor, a lecturer, poet, essayist, and an author of books for children and adults. This biography is written by her granddaughter, Ruth Williams.
File 8865: Full Text >
Caffiere, Blanche (1906-2006): An Appreciation
Blanche Hamilton Hutchings Caffiere was a Seattle teacher, librarian, writer, and storyteller. Over the course of her very long life she influenced many people. Among these were her childhood friend, world-famous Northwest writer Betty MacDonald, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who was her student at View Ridge Elementary School. In this essay HistoryLink.org staff historian Paula Becker, a friend during the last six years of Caffiere's life, remembers her.
File 8060: Full Text >
Campbell, Bertha Pitts: An Oral History
Bertha Pitts Campbell (1889-1990), an early Seattle civil rights worker, was a founder of the Christian Friends for Racial Equality and an early board member of the Seattle Urban League. This is an excerpt of an oral history interview of Bertha Pitts Campbell done by Esther Mumford on April 23, 1975, as part of the Washington State Oral History Project. The interview contains reflections on discrimination against African Americans in Seattle as well as an account of the internment of Japanese Americans at the beginning of World War II.
File 2427: Full Text >
Capitol Hill and the Movement: Dotty Decoster Remembers
This is an exerpt from a HistoryLink interview by Heather MacIntosh with Dotty DeCoster in April 2000. DeCoster was an outspoken member of the Women's Movement in the late 1960s and 1970s in Seattle. In this account, she recalls recalls life on Capitol Hill in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. She touches on a number of issues including: racism, the Civil Rights Movement; the Women's Movement; child care; women joining the Seattle work force; and the Boeing Bust and its impact on Capitol Hill and on the Movement.
File 2443: Full Text >
Central Themes of Washington History: Land, Cities, Women -- a Talk by Brewster Denny
This file contains a talk given by Brewster Denny to the Pioneer Association of the State of Washington on November 2, 1996. Brewster Denny is the great grandson of Seattle pioneer Arthur Denny. The talk is reproduced in full.
File 3262: Full Text >
Gerber, Anne (1910-2005): A Life in Art
Anne Gerber (1910-2005) has been a lifelong supporter of contemporary, cutting edge art in Seattle. She and her husband Sid Gerber (d. 1965) were collectors both of modern art and of Native American art. They donated their collection of Native American art to the Burke Museum. This People's History biography of Anne Gerber is by Debra Bouchegnies.
File 2852: Full Text >
God Dies: An Essay by Frances Farmer
Film star Frances Farmer (1913-1970) was a senior at West Seattle High School in April 1931 when she gained her first taste of national notoriety, with this award-winning essay, titled "God Dies." The essay won first place and a prize of $100 in a contest sponsored by The Scholastic, a magazine for high school students. It also generated considerable outrage, especially from local ministers.
File 4008: Full Text >
Group Health 1974: A Ward Clerk's Story
This is a first person account reprinted from From the Ground Up: A Seattle Feminist Newspaper, June 1974. In it, Helen Dunn describes the inequities and gender politics of hospital work in the mid-1970s.
File 2441: Full Text >
Happy Valley Grange (Redmond)
Granges were an important political force through much of rural America through the first half of the twentieth century and were responsible for a number of progressive agricultural and political reforms. The Happy Valley Grange, located in Redmond on NE 50th Street (just south of Redmond Fall City Road at 196th Avenue NE) has a long and significant local history stretching back to 1909. This account of the Happy Valley Grange, prepared by Sammamish Heritage Society historian Phil Dougherty, is based on two interviews of grange member Lorraine Mills in 2003. It reprints Dougherty's article, "Happy Valley Grange Has a Long, Local History" ( Sammamish Review, January 19, 2005, p. 20), and appears here with the kind permission of the Sammamish Heritage Society.
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Hazel Wolf Recalls Life at Firland
Seattle activist Hazel Wolf (1898-2000), who embraced a wide variety of social, political, and environmental causes during her 101 years, spent nine months as a patient at Firland Sanitorium for the treatment of tuberculosis in 1946. Firland (sometimes misidentified as "Firlands"), located north of what were then the city limits, was Seattle' municipal tuberculosis hospital. Wolf chafed at the strict rules there, broke several of them, and finally left the institution before being formally discharged. "I tried to introduce a little sanity in the sanatorium," she told writer Susan Starbuck, who conducted hundreds of oral history interviews with Wolf between 1980 and 1998. Starbuck compiled and organized the interviews in her book, Hazel Wolf: Fighting the Establishment (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002). This excerpt is used with her permission.
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Hazel Wolf Remembers the McCarthy Era
Hazel Wolf (1898-2000), Seattle's quintessential activist, championed many causes in her 101 years. First an advocate of women's rights, she went on to support labor and environmental issues. She was a member of the Communist party long before it was illegal, and suffered the ire of McCarthy-era red-baiting in the 1950s. Hazel recalled these difficult times in a 1999 speech, transcribed in part below. (Note: Hazel Wolf died on January 19, 2000.)
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Helfgott, Anna (1899-1996)
Anna Helfgott was a vigorous activist for progressive causes and a leader in Seattle's Gray Panthers. In her working years she was a dressmaker and fitter, and was an early member of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). This obituary was written by Marge Leuders and is reprinted from the Gray Panthers of Seattle Newsletter.
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Holden, Grace: Living with a Legend
The following account was excerpted from an interview with Oscale Grace Holden (b. 1930), the daughter of Oscar Holden (1886-1969), who was, according to Paul DeBarros in Jackson Street After Hours: The Roots of Jazz in Seattle, the patriarch of Seattle jazz. The Holden children, Grace, and her brothers Oscar Jr., Dave, Ron, and Jimmy were all musicians who played in Seattle in the late 1940s and beyond. Grace Holden still sings in her church's gospel choir. In this interview, conducted by HistoryLink's Heather MacIntosh on May 17, 2000, at Grace Holden's home in Madison Valley in Seattle, she shares memories of her father and of life as a Holden in Seattle in the 1930s and 1940s.
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Home of the Good Shepherd Oral History Interviews: former resident Jackie (Moen) Kalani
Toby Harris conducted this oral history interview of Jackie (Moen) Kalani, former resident of the Home of the Good Shepherd, on August 27, 1999, at the Good Shepherd Center, located at 4649 Sunnyside Avenue N. in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood. The oral history project was funded by King County Office of Cultural Resources (Landmarks & Heritage). For 60 years, from 1907 to 1973, the Home of the Good Shepherd was operated by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd to provide shelter and education to troubled young girls. Jackie Kalani was a resident from February 1949 to 1952.
File 5744: Full Text >
Lee Minto, Director of Planned Parenthood from 1967 to 1993, recalls the history of abortion reform
Lee Minto (b. 1927), executive director of Planned Parenthood of Seattle-King County from 1967 until her retirement in 1993, played a key role in the campaign for Referendum 20, which legalized abortion in Washington state in 1970. Fifteen other states had enacted liberalized abortion laws by that time, but Washington was the first to put the issue before the voters. In this interview, conducted for Historylink by Cassandra Tate on August 31, 2000, Minto recalls the early days of the abortion rights campaign in Washington.
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Legal But Limited: Abortion in 1974
This is a harrowing account of a legal abortion which resulted in complications that received inadequate care. It is written by Janet Creighton and excerpted from the June 1974 issue of From the Ground Up, a feminist newspaper published in Seattle. (Abortion was legalized by Washington voters on November 3, 1970.) Among Creighton's criticisms are the lack of adequate follow-up care, and the treatment of abortion as population control, rather than a woman's legal right.
File 2437: Full Text >
Lou Guzzo, managing editor, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, to Sally Raleigh, lifestyle editor, on the Equal Rights Amendment (1972)
Lou Guzzo (b. 1919), managing editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in the 1970s, sent this memo to Sally Raleigh, editor of the lifestyle section, on March 27, 1972. Guzzo was concerned about the implications of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which had been recently passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. He worried that it would "promote a new breed of Amazons." Raleigh posted what came to be known as "the Amazon memo" on a bulletin board, where it remained for some time, a source of both irritation and amusement to the increasing number of women in the once male-only newsroom. The ERA, introduced as the 27th Amendment, failed to win ratification by the necessary 38 states. What Guzzo called "the old order" was shattered anyway, as more and more women demanded to be "saddled" with equal rights.
File 8957: Full Text >
Managing at Seattle City Light, 1973-1989: an Interview with Walt Sickler
When Walt Sickler (b. 1927) was promoted from line crew foreman to Supervisor of Overhead Construction at Seattle City Light, he brought to the utility's management his knowledge of field operations and his leadership skills. One of his collateral duties was that of labor negotiator, which tested him in the mid-1970s. In this interview conducted by HistoryLink.org staff historian David Wilma, he recalls some of the labor relations issues during the administration of Superintendent Gordon Vickery (1920-1996).
File 2940: Full Text >
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